Giftango Expands Its Digital Gift Card Operations to Europe

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Giftango’s initial clients are focused on digitizing fulfillment of gift card and voucher programs in the B2B segment.

Portland, Ore., June 11, 2012 – Giftango Corporation, the global leader in digital gift card fulfillment, rewards, incentives and promotions technology, today launched its European subsidiary, Giftango International, with the opening of its Dublin office. UK based loyalty program manager Countdown and rewards and incentives provider Ovation Incentives are the first to launch Giftango powered digital gift card solutions in the market, featuring eight UK merchants. Giftango continues to expand its global footprint that now includes fifty of the largest loyalty, incentive, resell and mobile application companies and more than 300 merchants across the US, Canada, Australia, and Europe.

The Global Prepaid Exchange estimates the Euro Zone gift card and voucher market for gifting and corporate incentives to be approximately €21.8 billion with the UK representing approximately 25% of the total market (€4.59 billion). Although eGifting is still a small percentage of the total European gift card and voucher market (<1%), eGift offerings with brick and mortar merchants is growing rapidly and Giftango opened its European operation to support the growing demand.

Giftango’s initial clients are focused on digitizing fulfillment of gift card and voucher programs in the B2B segment. According to the UK Gift Card & Voucher Association (UKGCVA), voucher sales to corporate clients in 2011 represented an estimated 52% of total voucher and gift card sales in the UK, an estimated 20 percentage points higher than the US share of corporate sales.

“We spent much of 2011 having conversations with leading European merchants and the corporate programs that buy gift cards from them,” said Marcell King, Vice President of Merchant and International Development for Giftango. “We learned a few things taking this thoughtful approach. The UK B2B gift card market is poised to yield a very high return for those corporations and merchants launching digital gift cards. The opportunities for digital gifting developing in both the mobile and social markets cannot be denied. Today we’re introducing a corporate eGift product that fits the UK market.”

UK based Countdown manages loyalty programs for more than a hundred companies in the UK and currently makes available plastic gift cards and paper vouchers to more than 1.5 million recipients. UK based Ovation Incentives is a technology and marketing company that designs, develops and manages global incentive, reward and motivation solutions for its clients. Giftango will enable consumers participating in Countdown and Ovation managed programs to receive digital gift cards/vouchers from participating merchants almost instantly instead of waiting for physical gift cards and vouchers by post.

“We love that our program participants will now be able to receive their vouchers by email or SMS to their PC’s and smart phones,” says Kevin Lake, CEO of Countdown. “Importantly, this development will enable us to work with our partners to deliver new, dynamic and exciting offers to our members. Merchant partners will benefit from promotion opportunities targeted closely to their audiences.”

Jonathan Grey, CEO of Ovation adds, “We’ve been a long- time proponent of delivering digital vouchers in our programs. It’s great for the consumer, it’s great for the merchant, and it’s great for us. We’re excited that our partnership with Giftango will enable us to expand our portfolio of digital vouchers.”

About Giftango Portland, Oregon based Giftango Corporation, founded in 2005, has redefined gifting with their innovative delivery of digital eGift Cards to email and mobile phones. Merchants utilize the Giftango platform to power e-commerce sales, a wide variety of promotions and distribution through Corporate Channel Partners. Giftango International Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of Giftango Corporation, is headquartered in Dublin, Ireland with regional offices in London.

Giftango's Channel Partner solutions give loyalty and incentive companies the ability to add eGift Card fulfillment to their existing user interface for a wide variety of national brands. Giftango is integrated with twenty gift card processors and has patent-pending technology. For more information about Giftango, please visit http://www.giftango.com.

About Countdown MB Solutions (Holdings) Limited operates its programmes internationally under its well-established Countdown brand. Founded over 40 years ago we are the oldest and also the most active provider of discount and lifestyle programmes in the UK .We are an independent organisation with a strong reputation for quality and dynamism. We have over 40,000 offers in the UK with many thousands more internationally and we are adding new partners daily. Our members span all walks of life, a vast cross-section of age groups and lifestyles. For more information about Countdown, please visit http://www.countdownrewards.com.

About Ovation Founded in 2001 Ovation Incentives is multi-award winning global provider of employee, and recognition incentive solutions. Ovation Incentives is recognised as a thought leader in the Incentive and Motivation industry, and has received numerous accolades such as “Best New Voucher Product” and “Best International Rewards Programme.”